A reader asks the distinction between metanalysis and neologism. A good question, so I decided to pose it here.

I'd say the difference is that metanalysis is a process by which existing words become new ones, because of how the word is interpreted morphologically by the speakers of a language. A neologism is the description of a new word's origins. There's one than one process with which to coin a new word: assembling ISV (, international scientific vocabulary, i.e., Greco-Latinate) roots, using old words metaphorically, using an old word with different meaning, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by zmjezhd:
I'd say the difference is that metanalysis is a process by which existing words become new ones, because of how the word is interpreted morphologically by the speakers of a language.

I'm confused - but what's new. It seems to me that more often than not it's phonology, not morphology, that does it. One hears the word differently, thus leading to spelling modification, then to a totally new word. Am I off track here? Is this mondegreen, not metanalysis?

I'm confused - but what's new. It seems to me that more often than not it's phonology, not morphology, that does it. One hears the word differently, thus leading to spelling modification, then to a totally new word. Am I off track here? Is this mondegreen, not metanalysis?

Well, let's call it morpho(phono)logical. It's not just hearing the word differently, it's reinterpreting where the word boundary is. In a napron turning into an apron, the analysis is in where the word boundary is. The n is not felt to be part of the word napron, but as a part of the indefinite article an. If you look at the word adder in a purely historical phonological way, it'd be difficult to posit a purely phonological change of

/n/ -> /∅/ | #_

(n becomes null in the word initially)

This is similar to the question of where the h in author came from, changing the /t/ to an /θ/, or the d in admiral. Both of these letters were inserted because of a kind of etymological metanalysis, positing letters / sounds which had been lost by well-known historical-phonological processes, e.g., the absence in French of the d in aventure 'adventure'.

Besides this junctural metanalysis, there is also back formations, such as the -teria being lopped off from cafeteria and used in Spanglish words like washeteria or -eria in loncheria. Or of an original noun in a nominal compound Watergate being turned into a pretty active, and for some annoying, suffix, e.g., Irangate or Monicagate.

That all makes sense, but since different language groups (cultures) hear sounds differently, such as the Japanese confusion over "R" and "L," doesn't it follow that the interpretation of articles before words will be confused across language pools? As for synthesis, You cited Spanish examples. I don't speak Spanish, but I'm guessing that there are lots of Spanish examples from when Arabic influenced pre-Moorish Spanish. For instance, "algebra" sounds like a word using the Arabic definite article as though it were a part of the original word.

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Different language speakers tend to hear other languages through their own phonological inventory. It's not so much that the Japanese confused l and r, asthey do not have an l sound, and tend to replace it in loanwords with the closest sound they do have: r. English speakers do the same thing with Japanese f (as in fuji), which is really a voiceless bilabial fricative, which they replace with an English f which is a voiceless labio-dental fricative. This is based on the Romanization scheme where the Japanese sound is represented by an f. If they just hear the wound, anglophones tend to think it closer to a w. We do the same thing with Spanish b or v which are voiced bilabial fricatives but for which we substitute a voiced labio-dental fricative. There's a funny video making the online rounds that exploits this phenomenon for humorous effect.

You're right about algebra. A lot of the words we've got from Spanish that begin in al- usually are from Arabic, and the al- is the prefixed Arabic definite article. And there is an example in Spanish of this backfiring but I cannot remember it.

You know your stuff, Zmj! Thanks. However, my computer won't load the video. Waaahhhhh!!! I'm so frustrated I need some of that famous Arabic headache medicine, Al-Kaseltzer!

Here we go with words like "fricatives" again...I must get out my dictionary.

I assume metanalysis isn't related to the word meta-analysis, the research process?

Oh, Kalleh, I assumed that you and Shufitz enjoyed making fricatives together!

Here we go with words like "fricatives" again.

I linked every occurrence of words like fricatives with a Wikipedia article which pretty much explains what the words mean.

I assume metanalysis isn't related to the word meta-analysis, the research process?

Well, they are related in a way: both are composed of two Greek roots meta- and analysis. Jespersen's coinage is just more classically oriented in that if the word had occurred in Greek, the extra a and the hyphen would've been absent. But this is an example of two different, unrelated fields coining the "same" word but giving it different meanings.

Zmj, you know that I was kidding you about "fricatives." I love your erudite replies, and we all missed you when you were gone. We often would say, "We'll have to wait for Zmj to return."